The Right To Sing the Blues (26 page)

Nudger knew there was a single, low-percentage chance of staying alive. Not taking that chance would be reprehensible. Would be giving up. Forever.

He gulped down his terror and charged.

Sievers was caught off guard by this sudden attack from a supposedly subdued opponent. That was why he just grazed the side of Nudger’s head as he danced nimbly from the path of the charge and chopped hard with the heel of his hand. Not a clean hit. But no problem for the old trooper. He actually laughed at this unexpected sport.

Nudger’s right ear was numb and buzzing. His desperate surprise attack had gained him nothing. His back was literally against the wall now. In a very few seconds he would join Billy Weep.

Sievers was moving closer, crowding him, daring him to charge again, wanting him to charge, yearning to taste fully the violence he’d only sampled; his fighter’s blood was up. The bland man’s compact body was coiled inside his conservative brown suit, building energy to trade for Nudger’s death. His eyes hardened; he cupped his hands in peculiar half-fists and crouched low to spring. He became very still. He was ready.

Nudger didn’t hear the shot.

He doubted if Sievers heard it.

Presto, change-o! There was a round bluish hole just left of center on Sievers’ forehead. It might have been a magician’s illusion or the special-effects magic of movieland. Only it wasn’t; it was real life. Real death. His body didn’t move, but the energy seemed to flow out of it; the intensity drained from his eyes. He was his old bland self. Amiable average Marty. The guy you’d want your sister to bring home to dinner.

Nudger looked over to see Fat Jack still standing mountainous behind his desk. Almost lost in the big man’s right hand was a tiny, small-caliber pistol that looked too toylike to cause real damage or have anything to do with the hole in Sievers’ head.

Things weren’t as they seemed; the gun had done its job. Something moved in the corner of Nudger’s vision and there was a solid thump. Sievers’ body dropping to the floor.

“He didn’t leave me no choice,” Fat Jack said in an oddly breathless voice. “He was gonna leave the friendly fat man for Collins. He went nuts. Shit, he might have even killed
me
after he was done with you.”

Sievers wasn’t quite dead. His body began to vibrate and flop around, his heels banging on the soft carpet with a speed and rhythm Sam Judman downstairs on the drums would have envied.

The sight horrified Fat Jack. He began to suck in air deeply, unable to stop staring at Sievers. “It was you or him,” he said, still in his breathy voice. “I had to put my trust in one of you, old sleuth. You or him.” He lowered the thousand-pound gun to his side; his arm hung straight, as if strained by the weight. “Hey, you’re my only way out of this, Nudger.”

Nudger wasn’t sure about that, but he wasn’t going to differ with Fat Jack. He looked down at Sievers. People shouldn’t do this kind of thing to each other. It was all so damned unreal; hairless bipeds running around on a spinning globe of matter, whirling through an infinite universe, loving and hating and killing each other when they were all they had in the emptiness. What was going on here? Never had death by another’s hand seemed so wrong to Nudger, even though his own life had been saved.

Sievers went into violent convulsions then, his arms flailing and his fingers trembling as if electrodes were attached to their tips. Nudger’s stomach began to flop in time with the body on the floor.

“Hey, Jesus, make him stop, Nudger!”

“I can’t,” Nudger said simply, staring mesmerized with Fat Jack at Sievers and the small hole that didn’t belong in his otherwise unmarred forehead.

“Ah, Nudger, you gotta make him quit shakin’ like that!” Fat Jack’s eyes were wide and he was pale and perspiring; the loose flesh draped over his collar jiggled with his effort to turn his head. But he couldn’t look away. His bulk began to quiver almost like Sievers’ convulsing near-corpse. He was weeping, sobbing in horror. Nudger felt the old pity for him. It wasn’t surprising, since he shared Fat Jack’s revulsion for what had been done here. Death was never an easy thing, but this was grotesque. The entire room seemed to vibrate with the force of Sievers’ convulsions.

Fat Jack glided out from behind the desk, approached Sievers with his moist eyes clenched almost shut. With tremendous effort he raised his arm, pointed the gun, jerked the barrel back as he pulled the trigger.

The gun made very little noise; a flat, slapping sound.

Sievers was unaffected. Fat Jack had missed.

“Oh, Christ!” the fat man moaned. “Oh, Christ! Oh Christ! . . .”

He moved closer, fired again. Again. A small hole appeared near the base of Sievers’ neck. He didn’t bleed; there was no power left in him to pump blood. A little strawberry-colored froth built up in a corner of his mouth, like pink soap suds. Nudger’s stomach lurched and he swallowed. This wasn’t at all the way death by shooting appeared a million times a night on a million television screens; this death was soul-wrenching to watch.

Fat Jack was sitting on the floor now, his huge legs stuck straight out in front of him. His pants legs were twisted up on him; his ankles, clad in black nylon dress socks, were surprisingly thin. Great tears, as befitting such a huge man, were tracking down his face, dropping to spot his white shirtfront. He was clutching the gun tightly between his legs with both hands, as if he’d been kicked in the groin and it still hurt. He couldn’t stop sobbing.

Sievers finally got finished dying and lay still.

Nudger continued to feel a subtle vibration. His heartbeat. He drew a deep breath and held it for a while, forcing himself to be calm. Then he took a step toward Fat Jack and looked down at him. “Get up.”

Fat Jack couldn’t make it by himself. Nudger had to grip one flabby, perspiration-slick wrist and heave backward as the big man floundered, almost fell, then struggled to his feet.

More composed now, Fat Jack wiped at his cheeks with his sausage-sized fingers. He dragged a forearm diagonally across his damp face. He didn’t have to look at Sievers now; he couldn’t look at him. He kept his gaze up, away from the floor. Nudger waited for the deep resilience to come into play.

After almost a minute had passed, Fat Jack straightened his mussed pants and shirt, ran his fingers through his thinning gingery hair, and looked at Nudger with the old light of pure reason back in his piggy little eyes.

“Same deal as before?” he asked.

Nudger didn’t have any alternative. His primary consideration was getting Ineida back home alive and unharmed. Staying alive and unharmed himself. He nodded.

Fat Jack tossed the tiny spent revolver into a corner, moved to the desk, and began hurriedly stuffing his pockets with whatever he thought he might need and could carry. He knew the police were digging right now in Hollister’s garden. Digging. Digging.

“I’m going to phone Collins’ home in one hour,” Nudger reminded him. “If Ineida’s not there, my next call will be to the police.”

“She’ll be there. Hey, trust me. I trust you, Nudger.”

“Neither of us has a choice,” Nudger said.

“That’s the way the world works, old sleuth. No choices. Not really. Not for anyone. Slide Marty’s wallet out of his coat and hand it to me, will you?”

“No. You get it.”

“I can’t, Nudger. You know that. I gotta have
some
money! A man can’t run far without the green stuff!”

“I told you before, I’ve got nothing to lend you.”

Fat Jack tried again to look down at Sievers, but he couldn’t make it. His head rotated slightly toward the body, but his eyes wouldn’t follow; only the glistening whites were aimed at Sievers.

“All right, old sleuth,” Fat Jack said resignedly. “I’m going on the cheap.”

He tucked in his sweat-plastered shirt beneath his huge stomach, wrestled into his tent-sized suit coat, and without a backward glance at Nudger glided majestically from the room. Even the hell of what had happened here would soon be pushed to a far, dark corner of his mind; he’d have his old jaunty stride back in no time.

Nudger walked to the closed office door and locked it. Then he went to Fat Jack’s desk and sat down. The soft sound of the blues filtering up from downstairs only made the office seem more quiet. He could barely see the toe of one of Sievers’ kicked-off loafers lying next to a still, brown-stockinged foot. Death and silence had everything in common. Nudger would spend the next hour with these two, getting to know them better than he wanted.

He heard his rapid breathing gain a softer, steadier rhythm, and the pace of his heartbeat leveled off. The blues number he’d become involved in was played out now. Almost. Nudger settled back in Fat Jack’s chair.

He sat with the man with the hole in his head and felt time crawl slowly over both of them.

XXXII
I

hen Nudger answered the knock on his hotel-room door the next morning, he wasn’t really surprised to find Frick and Frack looming in the hall. They pushed into the room without being invited. There was a sneer on Frick’s pockmarked face. Frack gave his boxer’s nifty little shuffle and stood between Nudger and the door, smiling politely.

“We interrupt your sleep, my friend?” Frick asked in his buttery accent. He looked amused.

Their knocking had awakened Nudger. He’d made it out of bed, then slipped into his pants but not his shirt. He was bare-chested, bare-footed, digging his toes nervously into the rough carpet. He felt vulnerable, standing there without his shoes and socks on. His stomach, which a moment ago had yearned for breakfast, wasn’t so sure about food now.

“Mr. Collins is of the opinion you saved his daughter’s life,” Frick said. “This came out very well for you, my friend.”

“And for Ineida, considering.”

“But Mr. Collins still isn’t exactly fond of you,” Frack said. “He don’t like you personally, I guess.”

Nudger ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth; he’d slept too long and his teeth felt fuzzy. He didn’t like not being liked by David Collins. He wanted coffee. He wanted to brush his teeth.

“Mr. Collins thinks you’re a guy who’s habitually put
ting your nose where it doesn’t belong,” Frick said. “He’s right, eh?”

“I don’t put my nose anywhere,” Nudger said. “I only follow it. He’s afraid of where it might lead me.”

Frick slowly shook his head. “Not afraid, my friend. Cautious.” His eerie little smile took form as he said, “We brought you something from Mr. Collins.” He reached into an inside pocket of his pale green sport jacket. At the moment, the coat just about matched Nudger’s complexion.

All Frick brought out of the pocket, though, was an envelope. He held it out for Nudger, who accepted it and was surprised to see that his hands were steady as he opened it.

The envelope contained a single ticket for a coach seat on the 4:45 Amtrak
City of New Orleans
to St. Louis.

Frick said, “Mr. Collins wants you to take a train instead of a plane so you get the feeling of distance.”

“I’ll like that feeling,” Nudger said.

Frick’s smile broadened, lost its faraway, unsettling quality, and became genuinely friendly, even admiring. “You did okay, my friend. You did what was right for Ineida. Mr. Collins appreciates that.”

“What about Fat Jack?” Nudger asked.

Frick’s warm smile changed subtly, went cold. It became the dreamy, unpleasant sort of smile Nudger had seen before.

“Where Fat Jack is now,” Frack said, “most of his friends are alligators.”

“After Fat Jack talked to you,” said Frick, “he went to Mr. Collins. He couldn’t make himself walk out on all that possible money; some guys just have to play all their cards. He told Mr. Collins that for a certain amount of cash he would reveal Ineida’s whereabouts, but it all had to be done in a hurry.”

Nudger felt a coolness move over him, swirl around his bare feet. Marty Sievers had been persuasive enough last night to convince Fat Jack to try what he, Sievers, had been planning. But Fat Jack wasn’t Sievers. Nobody was, anymore.

“He revealed her whereabouts in a hurry, all right,” Frick said, “but for free.” Astoundingly, he gave a sudden, soft giggle. A woman’s laugh. “That fat man talked and talked. Faster and faster. In fact, he kept talking till nobody was listening, till he couldn’t talk anymore.”

Nudger swallowed dryly. He forgot about breakfast. Fat Jack had been a bad businessman to the end, dealing in desperation instead of distance. Maybe he hadn’t had enough of the blues during the past several years, and too much of the good life; maybe he couldn’t picture going on without that life. That was no problem to him now.

“You better pack, my friend,” Frick said, gently patting Nudger’s shoulder. “Train north pulls out on time.”

Both men turned and left the room.

Nudger closed the door behind them. He looked at his Amtrak ticket in its red-and-blue folder. He looked at his bare feet. He looked at his wristwatch. There was plenty of time to catch the train. In fact, he had much of the day to kill. But he didn’t feel like killing it here, or anywhere else where anyone connected with Collins or Sievers or Fat Jack or murder might find him. He decided to check out of the hotel, put his suitcase in a locker at the train station, and find some quiet place to eat breakfast where no one would bother him. Then he would walk around New Orleans for a while, listen to a little jazz played by the street musicians in the French Quarter, and maybe have a late lunch at the station before boarding the train for St. Louis and home and Claudia.